February 7, 2008

Here's a quiz: Get a pencil and paper and jot down the 10 most famous Americans in history. No presidents or first ladies allowed.

Who tops your list?

Ask teenagers, and they overwhelmingly choose African-Americans and women, a study shows. It suggests that the "cultural curriculum" that most kids — and by extension, their parents — experience in school increasingly emphasizes the stories of Americans who are not necessarily dead, white or male.

Researchers gave blank paper and pencils to a diverse group of 2,000 high school juniors and seniors in all 50 states and told them: "Starting from Columbus to the present day, jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history."

Topping the list: the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. Three of the top five — and six of the top 10 — are women.

Sam Wineburg, the Stanford University education and history professor who led the study along with Chauncey Monte-Sano of the University of Maryland, says the prominence of black Americans signals "a profound change" in how we see history.

"Over the course of about 44 years, we've had a revolution in the people who we come to think about to represent the American story," Wineburg says.

"There's a kind of shift going on, from the narrative of the founders, which is the national mythic narrative, to the narrative of expanding rights," he says.

Yes, but how does he explain No. 7: Oprah Winfrey?

She has "a kind of symbolic status similar to Benjamin Franklin," Wineburg says. "These are people who have a kind of popularity and recognition because they're distinguished in so many venues."

Indeed. After all, both Ben Franklin and Oprah Winfrey were the world's leading physicists for a decade or so in the middle of their careers. And while Oprah hasn't yet carried out the most important diplomatic mission in America's history, maybe President Obama will appoint her Secretary of State.

Here's the list chosen by 2000 juniors and seniors, no Presidents allowed:

1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%

2. Rosa Parks: 60%

3. Harriet Tubman: 44%

4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%

5.Benjamin Franklin: 29%

6. Amelia Earhart: 25%

7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%

8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%

9. Thomas Edison: 18%

10. Albert Einstein: 16%

All I have to say is that Sojourner Truth must be feeling pretty ripped off not to make the list.

Seriously, the absence of Jackie Robinson on this list shows how feminized schools have gotten, which explains a lot about the much higher dropout rate among boys.

This list also might explain a bit about why Hispanics and Asians aren't getting excited over Obama's candidacy. They must be asking, "Black this and black that. Why aren't we getting our fair share of our own pseudo-heroes pounded into the brains of children?"

About 20 years ago, E.D. Hirsch's Cultural Literacy survey revealed that more high school students could identify Harriet Tubman than Stalin or Churchill. I recall William F. Buckley wondering who in the world Harriet Tubman could be. If she was more important than Stalin, how could he have gone his whole life without ever hearing of her? And if she wasn't important, why was she famous?

How naive we all were back then!

I first heard about Harriet Tubman in my elementary school reader around 1969 or 1970. I was fascinated by the concept of her Underground Railroad and couldn't wait for the part where the slaves tunnel their way from the South to Canada, although, as I recall, the story turned out to be disappointingly lacking in detail about how they built the locomotives and laid the track.

In contrast, here's The Atlantic Monthly's recent list of "100 Most Influential Americans," as chosen by various experts in a survey overseen, I believe, by Ross Douthat. The top Americans who weren't Presidents on The Atlantic's list were:

I just attended my 5th grade son's parent/teacher conference yesterday. We live in a predominately white school district in Utah. There are a growing number of Latino kids attending his school, but only two bi-racial kids (with a black father) in the whole school. The one portrait hanging in his classroom, along with various "inspirational" posters, was of Harriet Tubman. At least I think it was Harriet Tubman. I tend to get her confused with Miss Jane Pittman.

Public schooling has always been propaganda for the interests of the powerful. Now the interests of the powerful consist in destroying the majority (White) culture, and replacing it with something more "vibrant."

Note the line about "today's students are less concerned with myth than with expanding rights." George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with rights; but a communist who contrived to raise a fuss on a bus is the central saint in the history of American rights. "American" now must mean "black underclass."

Hey, I've heard of that Washington guy. Wasn't he an evil slaveholder? Whites are garbage. Golden people are responsible for all progress!

The last decade of history of science coverage in Physics Today seems to be trying to convince me that Lise Meitner and Rosalind Franklin were the two key figures of the 20th Century. Interesting to see Amelia Earhart crowding out the Wright brothers and Charles Lindbergh. I'm surprised teenagers have heard of Marilyn Monroe.

Ms. Tubman's fame hasn't spread to this side of the Atlantic, as this is the first time I've heard of her. I would not have known who Susan B. Anthony is, either. In Europe and elsewhere, loads of American artists, authors, military men, astronauts, scientists etc. are a lot more famous than the likes of Tubman and Anthony. And although I had heard of her, I would not have known what Oprah Winfrey looked like until a couple of years ago.

Note that "most famous" is the question asked of the students and "most influential" was the question asked of the experts...they aren't the same thing. Amelia Earhart, for example, is famous but had little actual influence.

After looking at the Atlantic's list, I note that Frederick Doughlass (47) and Booker T. Washington (98) are off the students' radar. While the omission of Jackie Robinson may indicate the feminization of education, I would think that Douglass' and Washington's absence may indicate the de-literazation of education. Why read books written by ex-slaves when Oprah would seem to embody the entire black experience on TV?

Amelia Earhart? When I was growing up, she was famous only for vanishing without a trace - an acomplishment not usually considered good for a pilot.

Marilyn Monroe? Well, whatever blows your skirt up.

I was also puzzled by the inclusion of Albert Einstein. Certainly he was a great and influential figure (at least in science). And he eventually became an American citizen. But the work which made him great and influential had all been done long before, when he was a citizen first of Switzerland, and then of Germany. Do these kids even know that these other countries exist? Do they think that Einstein was born in Hackensack?

This list is especially depressing. It reveals a nation of people whose minds have been fogged by ignorance and cant. We are becoming a people without a past - and we will have no future either.

The study acknowledges that the emphasis on African-American figures by the schools leaves behind not only 18th- and 19th-century figures but others as well, such as Hispanic icon Cesar Chavez, Native American heroes such as Pocahontas and Sacagawea and labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers and Eugene V. Debs.

In other words, there isn't enough ethnic identity-mongering and left-wing politics on the list.

Steve Sailer:I first heard about Harriet Tubman in my elementary school reader around 1969 or 1970. I was fascinated by the concept of her Underground Railroad and couldn't wait for the part where the slaves tunnel their way from the South to Canada, although, as I recall, the story turned out to be disappointingly lacking in detail about how they built the locomotives and laid the track.

It's worth mentioning that Tubman's story itself is pretty cool, in a gruesome sort of way. From what I recall (from school, natch), she wasn't afraid to use force or drug a crying baby. That's the sort of detail that gets left out these days, I'll bet.

I remember the 1st time I heard of dear old Harriet. Our Catholic school was trying to be all 60's and "relevant" and in 7th grade we had a comic book series about Black History. Tubman,Toussaint L'Overture,Benjamin Banneker,the whole crowd. I can just imagine how far the sick propoganda machine has progressed since those innocent times! There was a famous black female who gave the famous "Aint I A Woman,Too" speech that(Obama-like)repeated that phrase throughout the speech.

By any objective and empirical standard, the kids who answered this survey got the answers wrong - a bad fail grade.

There can't be many non-Americans who know as much about the US as I do - I have read literally hundreds of literary, critical and factual books relating the USA, seen thousands of movies and TV programs, visited three times, I follow MLB, and I read a dozen-plus US blogs a day.

i am too technology centric to relate to the average person, but just off the top of my head, von braun was more important than most of the people on the atlantic list. he is (or was) well known and would probably be an acceptable addition to the list from the atlantic perspective.

other "off the top of my head" key figures in american technology such as shockley and farnsworth, who had much more effect on the world than many of the marginal people listed, would probably not warrant an appearance from the atlantic's point of view. winning the space race being a central part of american history, but celebrating the inventor of the transistor or cathode ray tube being quite a bit less dramatic.

the list includes no central figures in the history of american football. i'm not sure if rozelle or tagliabue is the appropriate representative, or somebody else, but that's a strange omission. or not, judging by the atlantic's perspective. sports not being their thing, and all.

yet combine farnsworth and american football and you get the superbowl, one of the most american american things of all-time. you can watch the superbowl drinking a coke, yet another american institution, thanks to john pemberton.

What!!! William Shockley didn't make the list. I'm shocked, shocked! Okay, he was born in Britian, but he was still an American.

I wonder why people learn about Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, but not William Lloyd Garrison or Frederick Douglas? It seems that the history taught today is desgined to concentrate on the least important people and accomplishments. What a waste.

Reading the start of your piece, I immediately turned my head away to avoid clues, and jotted down my own list - deliberately quickly and without too much thought - to see what my impression (as an Englishman) was. I came up with (in the order I thought of them):

I shouldn't have missed Ford and Edison. Probably the true list of most famous non-political Americans would include more film actors. The only famous black American that would have come to mind, I suppose, would be Booker T Washington. Yes, I've heard of MLK, of course, but he doesn't seem very important.

I remember once in high school, a history teacher asked us to name three of our heroes. I was close to the first one asked, and I named three people which included Isaac Newton. After that, something like 8 of the next 10 students (of mixed backgrounds) responded quickly with two people, paused, and added "Isaac Newton".

Eventually, the teacher commented on how popular Isaac Newton was with us, and asked one poor kid to explain what he liked about Isaac Newton. Of course, he really had no idea who Newton was.

The obvious implication of this sort of thing is that PC has gone hand-in-hand with declining educational standards. When I was at Harriet Tubman Junior High, we learned over and over that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation didn't free very many slaves. We barely had time to gloss over the super-secret Constitutional Freaking Amendment which did so. (I heard so much about Jesse Owens that I'm surprised he didn't make the list.)

There's simply not enough room in the Prussified mini-curriculum to get a good sense of history; there's only room for one ocean-crossing pilot/airplane passenger, so this Lindbergh character doesn't make the list. On the other hand, I'm heartened that of the top ten, not a single serial murderer, mass murderer, or organized crime figure made the list. In terms of pure fame, crime pays, it just doesn't pay as much as walking over a heating vent in a dress.

I still can't get over the study's authors putting forth Pocahantas and Sacajawea as the possible Indian "heroes". Pocahantas (maybe) saved John Smith from death, which wouldn't seem to recommend her to the politically correct to begin with. She then married a settler, visited England and died. That's it. Unless you're getting your history from Walt Disney movies.

Theodore Dalrymple discusses the same exact thing in his books, and it's a policy of deliberately destroying traditional culture, values, and history to push a "New Man" or in this case "New Woman" complete with a remade cultural history wrought by the intelligentsia.

Mark Steyn makes the point (or was it Stanley Kurz?) on NRO that conservatives after Bush 1 sat out the Culture Wars (on that Pat Buchanon was right) and allowed education to be totally overrun by hard-left idiots who deliberately destroyed the common culture of America (as they already have in Britain).

This is not "Idiocracy." It is a deliberate attempt to destroy American culture. At the collegiate level, the late Stephen Ambrose noted that even his university, UNO, was profoundly hostile to research and writing about anything other than what he derisvely termed "Colonial Lesbians of Color."

Whenever women dominate a particular field this is exactly what you get btw. I too had the idea of a really neat system of tunnels. I was vastly disappointed in the real Underground Railroad.

What's sad is who is not on the list: Commodore Perry, James Doolittle, Wyatt Earp, Geronimo, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Lewis AND Clark, Nicolas Tesla, Patton, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

No military heroes made the list. No astronauts (Neil Armstrong) or frontiersmen (Crockett, Bowie), either. How gay is that?

This is left-wing public education, so no pure businessmen are allowed. Sorry Astor, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, and Morgan. You can just forget about Gates or Buffett.

I'm surprised Franklin and Edison are still hanging in there. Clearly, the Left has more work to do. Give it a few years and maybe Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez, Tecumseh, or the great founder of our nation herself, Emma Lazarus, will earn their rightful places on the list.

I can't believe Walt Disney didn't make the list. His name is on the tip of every one of their little tongues for the first ten years of their lives. I happen to believe he belongs on the Atlantic's list as well; he's one of the greatest creative entrepreneurs in American history: he wrote the rules for animation.

miller, I agree, if you leave out presidents. the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, our list is rather dire. Compare it to England's, and you don't even have to go back so many hundreds of years...Disraeli, Dickens, Darwin, Nelson, Churchill, Shackelton (Irish, but Brits can still claim him), Alan Turing, Brunel...that's off the top of my head. Also, to be honest, Richard Branson, and even Simon Cowell.

Don't you know that the way to get through school is to tell the teacher what she wants to hear? Obviously these kids have learned how to play the game. This pretty much guarantees, though, that when I have children, they will be homeschooled. No education would be better that what these kids got.

And it goes without saying that no soldiers made the list: Sherman, Lee, Patton, MacArthur. And heaven help any benighted soul that named Nathan Bedford Forrest.

In a way, I don't find the list that discouraging. I was in elementary school Roots first aired, which swept up the schools in a wave of negritude. The bright kids - black and white - could see it for what it was: a self-esteem carrot to get more black kids interested in learning. It's like children's books with pictures of somebody going to the doctor (or some other high-status professional). The doctor is almost invariably black or hispanic. Most kids recognize that that doesn't jibe with their experience, and understand why.

That beig said, saying that Harriet Tubman is the most important figure in abolitionism is like saying that Oskar Schindler was the central figure in liberating the Jews from the concentration camps.

In no particular order. I was thinking in terms of "famous," and arbitrarily excluded everyone who's still alive. My definition of "famous" is based mostly on name-recognition, and my belief that most people you stop on the street would either know what the person did, or at least be very sure that they know what that person did (i.e., I expect most people to get Chavez, Anthony, and Lee at least partially wrong, but to get in the right ballpark.)

I was born in 1980, attended public elementary schools in Southern California, was homeschooled through high school, and attended a public university in Ohio. I like Edison and Twain for the list, after reading through the comments -- but Einstein shouldn't count. I too was disappointed in the Underground Railroad.

To replace my five Presidents, I'd say:

EdisonTwainBrigham YoungEarhart (she IS famous)Disney

I have to expand my "famous" criteria, though -- I suspect many of those five are famous for what they did, but most people would flunk the "what did he do" test. I don't expect most students to really be aware that Disney is a person and not a logo: most of the other cultural logos in their lives are either obviously names (full first and last used everywhere: Georgio Armani) or really aren't names (Nike.) Disney fits the pattern of the second one better, and the man himself has been dead since the average high school junior's parents were in grade school.

I'm honestly surprised the kids picked up Tubman -- it's my experience that social studies and history are the subjects kids pay the least attention to. For her to beat out Oprah says something I don't quite understand about public education (it's succeeding in an area I didn't anticipate.) This forces me to also reallocate much of the blame for poor preparation from students and parents to teachers and administrators, amongst other things.

Here's something interesting on the serious list (the one in the Atlantic): Hardly any Catholics. I can identify 2 on the list, though even they barely qualify: Enrico Fermi, who did most of his important work before he was American, and only came to the US because his wife of Jewish, and Ralph Nader, whose parents are Maronite (which is affiliated with Catholicism).

other "off the top of my head" key figures in american technology such as shockley and farnsworth, who had much more effect on the world than many of the marginal people listed, would probably not warrant an appearance from the atlantic's point of view. winning the space race being a central part of american history, but celebrating the inventor of the transistor or cathode ray tube being quite a bit less dramatic.

As we look around and see so many young people using technology they simply do not understand (at any level deeper than as a user) and could not replicate, perhaps we can see that the movers and shakers in society know who the other movers and shakers are and who are the mere consumers (ie, the sheeple).

If any of these kids get to any university in the top 75, and they take a survey course in American history, Tubmania will be pretty much overturned.

Wrong. Most of the very top schools no longer even require a course in American history, and of the ones that do the classes often put a strong emphasis on "diversity."

I just attended my 5th grade son's parent/teacher conference yesterday...The one portrait hanging in his classroom, along with various "inspirational" posters, was of Harriet Tubman.

Why do you think the UEA and the left spent so much money fighting the voucher referendum? So they can keep your kids in their ghetto.

Another aspect I noticed in that election was the strong undercurrent of both class warfare and bigotry against non-Mormons (since most Utahns don't connect the Mormon Church with parochial schools).

Note that "most famous" is the question asked of the students and "most influential" was the question asked of the experts

I think Oprah would even qualify as one of the most influential, too, as her verion of sloppy, self-centered, lazy, overly emotional thinking has influenced so many women (and more than a few men).

other "off the top of my head" key figures in american technology such as shockley and farnsworth...would probably not warrant an appearance from the atlantic's point of view.

Strange, since Farnsworth (TV) and Shockley (the internet, indirectly) are at least partly to blame for the demise of American culture and literacy. Leftism sells so well on TV in a way it would not on paper.

And it goes without saying that no soldiers made the list: Sherman, Lee, Patton, MacArthur.

In fairness, several soldiers were specifically excluded from consideration - Eisenhower, Washington, Jackson and Grant - because they became presidents. Not that they would've been named anyway.

Can anyone suggest great/influential American Catholics?

Scalia, who you mention, William F Buckley, and Peggy Noonan. The latter will never be famous in an absolute sense, but she's one of the most profound, articulate writers around.

Also, Steve Sailer (I believe).

Who needs a Ministry of Truth when you control the education system?

Indeed. Now we see the inanity of allowing the public schools to take control of your child's education.

Do everything you can to take it back from them. Stock your home with books that teach real history. Look for older history books/texts on Ameazon, Abebooks, etc. that can often be had for a few dollars.

And I wonder if the 15/50 logic applied to politicians will apply in the future to American history? I wonder if white Americans will start demanding our heroes back when we all finally relaize we're under assault?

Aside from JFK, the most influential has probably been William F. Buckley, jr. Regardless of what you think of him and his work, he pretty much built the intellectual framework of postwar American conservatism.

William:Do everything you can to take it back from them. Stock your home with books that teach real history. Look for older history books/texts on Ameazon, Abebooks, etc. that can often be had for a few dollars.

I think that today the most of the effort in informing people about men like Washington and Jefferson is placed on telling the stories of how they slept with their slaves or how HL Mencken and Lindburgh were antisemites or Lincoln really used slavery to get elected but really didn't care yada yada yada...

Last time I checked (reflecting on the USA Today question), Columbus was not an American, but an Italian. This reflects the stupidity of the lamestream media. They should have said, "Since the time of Columbus..." (Duh)

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